


The Mermaid and the Siren

by orphan_account



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Arranged Marriage, Cannibalism, F/F, Fake Marriage, Mermaid/siren AU, Murder, Slow Burn, accidental mass murder, forced bed sharing, some ambiguous political combination of the two, sorta but not technically
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-09
Updated: 2017-04-09
Packaged: 2018-10-16 16:38:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10575273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Mermaids and sirens are not the same thing, and the two groups haven't always gotten along. After tragedy strikes, a drastic measure is needed in order to keep the peace. The leaders campaign for unity and marry off their second-in-commands to ensure it. Now Natalya and Michelle have to put on a show of being happily married to maintain the fragile peace that keeps war from breaking out.But things aren't as simple as they seem, and eventually the past comes back around.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The Siren political system is based off the rankings of the U.S. Air Force/Army, except I made up the rank of Chief General. It’s closest equivalent would be General of the Army or Commander-in-Chief, in that it’s the highest station attainable but in a unitary force. If the military isn’t divided up by a force for sea, a force for land, and a force for air, then there is no reason to have one rank for the person in charge of each separate sector and a different rank for the person in charge of them altogether. The Navy uses a different ranking system, and even though that would be more ocean-y or whatever, I didn’t use that because I really don’t think the sirens would want to compare themselves to their prey lol. Also, to them, the water is air. They don’t sail across it; they fly through it.
> 
> Shibzlenk: an invented undersea unit of measure. Started out as a rough estimate for an average ship’s length, was then corrupted and became wildly inaccurate, and was later standardized to something very different from the original.
> 
> I realize that lots of people call Monaco Monique but that’s not canon and I don’t like it so imma call her Lucille.
> 
> This takes place in ~1900 ish.
> 
> I realize these first few chapters are heavily centered on Natalya, but that's temporary and will even out later on.

Natalya snaked towards the bottom of the ship, trying to get to a good angle to see its name, or better yet, its crew. It was hard to make out anything past the distorted sunlight shifting over ten feet of constantly moving water. She frowned. She didn’t want to risk them seeing her and having a chance to react, but apparently, she didn’t have a choice.

She swum backwards with powerful kicks of her tail, which shone a sickly purplish white. Long, narrow fins trailed her like ribbon.

Her head broke the surface of the water and immediately she began to sing. Even the roar of waves crashing and the ocean wind couldn’t drown her out; she was inescapable. Beautiful notes bounced off the sea as loud as, well, a siren.

The ship was the _Queen Elizabeth_. It had a crew just under thirty people. An English merchant ship on its way to the Caribbean to stock up. _He_ definitely wouldn’t be on it. A shame.

The crew stilled and turned to look at her. Dopey idiot grins hung off their faces. A few began to shuffle and stumble towards the railing, and Natalya quickly sung an order for them to stay on the ship. A merchant ship was always laden with either goods or gold, and if it was an English ship heading towards the New World, it was likely both, but she was hedging on fact that they would be picking up more resources than they were doling out.

Bringing the whole ship down and not just the people on it was a bit more complicated than a traditional hunt. It was nothing that Natalya couldn’t handle, of course. And stealing gold was the easiest way to buff up the treasury.

Still singing, she slipped back under the water. The sailors cried out in anguish. The sheer power of the siren’s voice meant she could still be heard, but not as clearly, and they could no longer see her. Her, who had become the embodiment of their deepest desire right then. Her, who seemed able to give them whatever they wanted most, be it sex, money, power. Food. Some intangible concept. Anything.

In that moment, Natalya Arlovskaya was the most beautiful and wise creature in the universe and it would be a blessing just to be near her. If they could just get close enough, all their wildest dreams would come true.

The crew clamored below deck, a few remaining above to lower the sails and drop the anchor. She pressed herself to the hull of the ship—for just a moment—just to let them know where she was. The sailors shrieked in exuberance. One of them was nearly crying with joy.

They tore the ship apart from the inside. Men tried to pry away boards with their bare hands, turning their fingers into a bloody mess. Others slammed heavy chests into the hull; others still used their weapons, some ineffectively trying to saw through wood with their swords and some firing to create a nice dotted line, much easier to tear down.

Water gushed in through bullet holes, through ripped out boards. Small holes were torn and enlarged. The ship began to fill with water and sink lower into the ocean. The crew cheered as they were able to see Natalya. She smiled and swam down even lower, always hovering just a few feet out of reach.

The sailors feverishly destroyed their ship for her sake, desperate to bring it lower, bring it closer. Soon they had to hold their breath and dive to continue working.

All at once, physics took over. The hole was big enough. The ship gurgled under the waves and nosedived toward the ocean floor. Natalya danced off to the side, safely out of the way. The sailors wailed, wasting large bubbles of breath. They desperately tried to swim closer to her, while still obeying the order to stay in the ship, but it was impossible.

She gave a farewell wave. The sailors giddily returned it with the last of their strength, faces still so full of happiness and desire.

The massive ship was sinking like a stone now, weighted down with wood and gold and bodies. It was a long way from the surface to the seafloor, miles down.

It was then that she noticed the village.

_“F*ck!”_

There was a mermaid village sprawling out in the dark at the bottom of the sea. The ship was gonna fall right on it.

She darted towards it and grabbed onto the railing, trying to pull it up or to the side or _anything._ Sirens were stronger than humans, maybe she could. Maybe she could.

The rail broke off in her hands.

Pure panic filled her. She raced to the other side of the ship and slammed her entire weight against it. The ship shifted, marginally, up and to the side a bit. Then it went right back to sinking, a multi-ton weight about to level a small city.

Natalya coiled back and rammed it again, feeling the impact in her bones. Her teeth slammed together, and she tasted blood in her mouth.

Such a minimal correction. It was so close now.

She couldn’t move it in time.

She flew down to the village. “Swim away! Swim away, get out! There’s a ship sinking, you need to evacuate! Run!”

Mermaids slowly came out of their homes, blinking in confusion and murmuring amongst themselves. They were too far away to make out her words, and only saw a screaming siren coming at them.

Then they saw the ship.

A scream ripped through the water and shocked the village into action. They were mermaids, they were faster than any other creature in the ocean. But almost all of them went back into their homes to get their families, or down the street to their place of work, or stayed behind to help the children and the elderly. 

Natalya was still screeching that there wasn’t time, just save yourself, just _get out_ , when the ship crashed.

* * *

 

She floated back into the fortress numbly, mindlessly heading to the command center. Two guards parted from the doorway, both saluting her with their right hand over their mouth, arm at a stiff angle.

“Arlovskaya. How did the hunt go?” the Chief General asked.

She opened her mouth to speak, and felt her throat close up.

“Natalya?” the Chief General asked again, concern in her voice.

“There was a village,” she said. “A mermaid village. I didn’t see it. I swear I scouted ahead of time, I scanned the whole area, I followed protocol, I swear I did, it’s just… I didn’t see it. The ship must have moved. I didn’t take that long, I don’t know how it could have gone that far, it must have… It must have been windy. They had their sails high. I didn’t think they would move that fast, I would have scanned farther. I followed protocol, I swear I followed pro—“

“Natalya,” Chief General Héderváry said, her voice crisp. “What. Happened.”

She gulped. Her words came out quiet, small, “I crashed a ship into a mermaid village.”

The other general’s head snapped up. Erzsébet sucked in a breath, and water streamed out of her gills, swaying her hair a bit.

“Were there any survivors?” she asked tersely.

Natalya nodded. “A few.”

“Thank God. We’ll have to send aid immediately. Food, money. The survivors are to be brought here and treated like kings until they can be permanently relocated.”

“I will do it immediately,” Natalya promised.

“No you won’t. General Chung will. You are hereby dismissed from the Siren Order and banished from all of our settlements.”

Panic edged into her chest. “I followed protocol. It was an accident. It could have happened to anyone,” she said, somehow managing to keep her voice even.

“But it didn’t happen to anyone. It happened to _you_ , one of the highest ranking sirens there is. We’re going have to meet with the mermaid leadership and formally apologize. You want me to go to the mermaid queen and tell her that a siren general levelled a mermaid village and got no punishment? It doesn’t _matter_ that it was a mistake, Arlovskaya. How many mermaids were in that village? How many did your carelessness kill today? How many others did you displace? You didn’t _think_ the ship would move that much? Should I tell the families of the dead that? I’m sure they’ll take great comfort in knowing that you _followed protocol._ ”

Silence rang through the room.

Erzsébet shook her head slightly, composing herself. “I’m issuing a temporary ban on hunting within fifty shibzlenks of all mermaid settlements. The punishment for violating it is 20 years in the Trench.”

Lien raised an eyebrow. “The people won’t like that.”

“We need to show how seriously we take this unimaginable tragedy. And the people will be fine, most mermaid villages are very far away from siren villages,” Erzsébet said. “Both of you need to be ready to leave within two hours. If we’re lucky, we’ll reach Poseidonia in under two weeks. Chung, dispatch a courier to inform the queen of the situation and tell her we are coming.”

“Both of us are going?” Lien asked.

“Arlovskaya isn’t going as my second. She’s going as the perpetrator of a mass slaughter, who owes the mermaid government a formal apology. I don’t want the Mermaid Court to blame the siren government for this. This could so easily be seen as an act of war. The second in command of the Siren Order just levelled a mermaid village. Everything we do from here on out is damage control, and that includes giving the mermaids one specific person to blame and distancing ourselves from her.” She turned to Natalya and spoke, “I’m sorry. But this is too big of a mistake to be forgiven.”

She moved brusquely out of the room, a stately figure trailed by a shimmering black and blue tail, scarred up and with tattered fins from the fights that had earned her her station. 

Lien moved to follow suit. She paused just after passing Natalya. “Wash up before we go,” she said. “You still smell of blood.”

* * *

 

Erzsébet, Lien, Natalya and four guards went on the journey. Poseidonia is the mermaid capital, located in the Mediterranean, midway between Sicily and Crete. Vivimaris was the siren capital, a fortress-city carved into the rockside under Bermuda, a network of caves and tunnels that sprawled out much farther than the island above water.

The trek across the ocean was arduous. Sirens average around thirty miles an hour—a little faster than dolphins, but not anything close to what mermaids can do—but even travelling fourteen hours a day, it’s no small thing to cross an ocean. The higher-ups were in peak physical condition as their jobs demanded, but the guards needed to rest more frequently, every three hours or so.

They weren’t actually there to “guard” them, per se. It wasn’t that they were inept; it was actually very prestigious to be appointed to the Vivimaris Guard, the training for it was some of the most intensive and rigorous there was. But no one of any significance in the Siren Order actually needed a bodyguard. In a military state such as that, guards were mostly there as the less-skilled fighters you had to beat before you were allowed to fight the real powers.

Plus, they served a diplomatic purpose. Every other government in the world sent their leaders with a veritable troupe of attendants: personal servants, chariot drivers, military leaders, a whole host of advisors, and always, always guards. It helped assert the idea that you were an important person, someone to be respected and listened to. 

Sirens wanted to be thought of as a people in their own right, not just a rogue mermaid militia. And so they brought guards and pretended to need them.

* * *

 

It was day five of their journey when they came upon a siren village. They had seen the warm glow and felt the growing heat in the water from volcanic vents, so naturally they had gone towards them, knowing there must be sirens nearby.

They weren’t going _that_ far off track. And besides, they needed to stay the night somewhere. May as well do it within the comforts of civilization.

Natalya soaked in the sensation of being near vents again, stretching out to feel more of the heat on her skin and scales. There was something about undersea vents. They gave off this sense of power, this energy that was almost addictive. Of course, maybe that was just her imagination.

Living on the vents is solely a siren trait. Most other sentient creatures can’t swim to those depths, but sirens come from the very pits of the ocean. The darkness doesn’t blind them like it does humans, and they can withstand the severe cold from that far down with ease, but nevertheless, they are naturally drawn to the heat and light.

The peoples’ homes were built in a ring around them, on the colder, safer rocks. The arrival of newcomers earned them some stares. The people clearly weren’t used to strangers coming to a town this far out. Most seemed to recognize that the bands around their upper arms marked them as high-ranking, but didn’t seem to realize just how high. It was unlikely that many of them knew what the colors and numbers of the straps meant.

The sheriff of the town did though, herself wearing a single green band. She swam forward purposefully, giving a grandiose salute.

“We were not expecting such esteemed guests. To what do we owe the honor?” she asked.

“We’re on our way to Poseidonia for a diplomatic meeting. Saw the lights, figured we’d stop here for the night,” the Chief General said.

“…There is no inn or boardinghouse in this village,” she said apologetically.

“We’ll make do,” Lien said. “It’s nothing we aren’t used to while travelling.”

“I’m sure we can find some sort of accommodations for the Chief General,” the sheriff said.

“It’s no problem, really,” Erzsébet said.

“No, I insist. I’ll ask around, I’m sure there are some villagers who have rooms they can give up for you.”

“I don’t want to inconvenience anyone, and I certainly don’t want to force anyone out of their home. I’m not a dictator. We’ll be just fine sleeping on the ground.”

“This village may not be wealthy, but we can certainly do better than having the head of state sleep on the _ground_ when she visits. You wouldn’t be forcing—“

Natalya tuned out and wandered off. This go on for another half an hour. That sheriff looked really adamant, but Erzsébet was viciously opposed to being treated like aristocracy.

Lots of the townspeople openly stared, whispering to themselves. Natalya smirked. Let them.

She _looked_ like she was from Vivimaris. She had the keen eyes and self-assured stance of a warrior. Four pale lines on her side told of an encounter with a sea lion who was less friendly than he seemed. Another near her fins had been given to her by a drug smuggler. Her right arm had three sharkskin bands around it, the top two dyed black, the bottom one red. She wore a belt around her hips for the sole purpose of providing a sheath for her razor-sharp dagger. If her hair moved in the water just right, they could see the emblem of the Siren Order tattooed on the back of her neck.

She should consider wearing a ponytail like Lien does, so it would always be visible.

A little girl approached her, determination on her face. “I want you to teach me how to sing so I can join the Siren Order.”

Natalya eyed her. “You have to be at least fifteen for that.”

“I’m eighty-two.”

_“Physically_ fifteen.”

“Well, I’m ‘physically’ twelve, so I’m only a few decades off. Will you please just help me?”

It’s not like it could hurt anything… 

“Sure.”

* * *

 

The two of them scouted along the surface, searching for the underbellies of ships on the horizon.

“So what do you mean you want to join the Siren Order? All sirens are automatically in the Order. You just can’t get a rank yet,” Natalya said.

“Yeah, but I wanna go all the way. Aria, the sheriff, she lets me tag along with the huntresses, but I’m not allowed to sing and only get to go as an ‘observer.’ She says I have potential. Been giving me singing lessons. But I want to do more with my life than just be the next town sheriff. When I grow up, I wanna work in Search and Resettlement.”

“That’s noble of you,” Natalya said. “If you’re already getting lessons, then what do you need me for?”

“There’s a difference between being taught by a small town sheriff and being taught by the second in command of the entire Order.”

“Ah. My name is Natalya, by the way. Arlovskaya.”

“I’m Wendy Kirkland.”

“Nice to meet you,” she said. “So, Wendy Kirkland, how did someone so young even become a siren? If you don’t mind me asking.”

“Shark attack. It wasn’t the shark’s fault; they didn’t know any better. I don’t blame them or anything,” she said. Natalya nodded.

“Me and my brother were orphans back in England. He was the one who raised me. We didn’t have any other family we could go to, any house to live in, nothing. Jett was always stealing food and causing all sorts of other trouble. Eventually we got shipped out to Australia.

“I was splashing around in the water one day, and Jett was up on the beach talking to a man about a house or something, I don’t remember. A shark bumped into me and took a bite out of my side. I died, and then I woke up. That’s how I became a siren.”

They swam in silence for a while, just scanning the ocean’s ceiling.

“So what about you? How did you become a siren?” Wendy asked.

“I was murdered. Held underwater and strangled. I later found out that I had been buried in a shallow grave just off the beach. The man who killed me was involved with the Russian Imperial Navy, so I target their ships. I’ve been looking for him. I’ve got a favor to return.” She glanced over at Wendy, who had gone several shades paler. “Guess I’m not as forgiving as you are.”

It was now officially night, with the last brushes of sunset disappearing from the water. The girls’ eyes took on a faint glow, though not much. This close to the surface, there was still moonlight and starlight seeping through.

“Did you ever try to find him again? Your brother?” Natalya asked.

“Yeah. I went back to that same beach every day for years. At first he was there a lot. I couldn’t go onto the beach, so I would call out to him, tell him to swim out to meet me. I think he thought I was a ghost. Like I was haunting him for not being able to save me. Eventually he stopped coming. I don’t think he goes near the sea at all anymore. Which is a shame; he loved the ocean,” she sniffed, wiping her nose across her arm. “That was seventy-three years ago.”

The average life expectancy had been on the rise lately; it was 45 now, as opposed to a mere 40 back then, if a person was lucky. Her brother was long dead.

Natalya patted her on the shoulder awkwardly, not knowing what else to do. A hug was too familiar for someone she hardly knew, right? Wendy gave her a strange look.

No wonder she wanted to go into Search and Resettlement. Years. She put herself and her brother through misery for years before the Order found her and took her in. They had placed her as far away as possible, in the middle of the North Atlantic—probably a smart choice. If only they had found her sooner.

But S&R was so severely understaffed, as a result of being both a low-glory task and requiring a high rank to apply. They didn’t want sirens being resettled by people who didn’t know what they were doing or how the system worked, but precious few people trained as a warrior so they could go on to be a humanitarian.

“Hey, is that a ship?!” Wendy asked, pointing to a dark smudge floating in the distance. 

“Yes, I believe it is,” Natalya said. “Come on!”

* * *

 

“What do I sing about? Sex?” Wendy whispered.

“No,” Natalya said firmly. “Don’t sing any words unless they’re commands. The sailors will hear whatever they want to hear regardless. Whatever they want most: sex, money, power, love. Knowledge of the future. Their favorite food their dear mother used to make.”

Wendy giggled. “You can get men to jump to their deaths by promising food?”

Natalya shrugged. “Humans.”

The two sirens broke the surface, feeling the cold night air hit their skin and the turbulent waves rocking them. Swimming into the air was never fun; it was always freezing when you first got in.

Though allegedly mermaids enjoyed the activity.

The sirens sang, Wendy doing her best to mimic Natalya as closely as possible. Heads began to turn, sailors dropping whatever they were doing. Their faces were awestruck, as if viewing the creation of the universe. They looked at the sirens as if they were the moon itself; the most beautiful thing they will ever see, holders of every secret in the world, the key to all their wildest desires. The answer to their prayers.

“You need to be louder. If you’re too quiet, they might be able to snap themselves out of it,” Natalya said.

Wendy raised her voice, belting out a screeching melody at the top of her lungs. The two sailors nearest to her appeared to come to their senses, and Natalya quickly fired off some notes to put them back under.

“Don’t sacrifice sound for volume. Quality is always the most important,” she said. “Let the water do the work for you. It echoes. Angle your head a bit, like this.”

Wendy watched Natalya and then did the same herself. By now, the entire ship’s crew were crowded around the railing, watching and listening in wonder.

“You have to be very specific when giving them commands. That was something I learned the hard way. If you simply tell them to kill themselves, they might get out their guns or swords rather than go over the edge. And then you have an entire ship’s worth of food floating around out there, unable to be reached. Good for the birds, I guess, but not good for the sirens.”

“Okay. Hey, jump over the edge and drown!” Wendy called out.

The sailors did not.

“You have to sing it or they won’t listen. It’s like they can’t even hear you,” Natalya said.

Wendy huffed and repeated herself melodiously. The sailors rushed to do her will in a heartbeat. They climbed the ship’s railing and flung themselves into the water. Some made no effort to swim, some went the extra mile and dove beneath the waves.

“I did it!” Wendy exclaimed. “I really did it! Thank you!”

She attacked Natalya in a sudden hug, who tensed for a moment before returning it.

“Okay, what now?” the preteen asked.

Natalya unwound the rope she had brought with her. “We hogtie them all together and haul them back to your village’s food dispensary.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whenever I mention a character using metal anything, just know that I mean very high-grade aluminum, which doesn’t rust and depending on how it was forged, can be just as strong if not stronger than steel.

A siren courier was admitted to the throne room. She saluted instinctively, then seemed to remember that mermaids curtsy instead, and clumsily tried to correct herself.

“A message from the Siren Order, I presume?” Queen Yekaterina asked.

“Uhh… yes. Here,” she hurriedly untied the sash of fabric she was wearing, showing it to be a long and narrow scroll-like message with words written in dye. Writing a message for undersea use was a cumbersome task and setting the dye took up to an hour of above-water work, but it could be done.

Yekaterina skimmed the letter. Her brow furrowed deeper with every line.

“What is it, my queen?” Princess Michelle asked.

“The sirens—“

“Your highness, a news courier has arrived,” a palace guard announced.

“Admit them immediately,” she said.

The throne room doors were opened yet again, and a sedate mermaid entered, curtsying gracefully before wordlessly presenting the queen with the message. She retreated off to the side, waiting to be either dismissed or sent off with a new message. The siren courier moved to do the same, face burning.

The news report from one of the surviving mermaids and the sirens’ preliminary apology read very different. The news report was lengthy, detailed, gory. A survivor’s honest perception of what had happened. Some unidentified siren had brought a human ship down on their village, and only bothered to warn people at the last minute. In a village of 537, only nine had survived. Siren soldiers had come and escorted them to Vivimaris, then searched the wreckage for anyone they might have missed.

The merman who wrote the letter had done it in secret. He said he planned to sneak out of the Vivimaris complex at night and run it to the mermaid village that had formerly neighbored his own. He wasn’t sure if the sirens would approve of him contacting his queen about the matter in such an uncensored light, so better safe than sorry. It was an incredibly tense situation to be a mermaid living in _Vivimaris._ He wrote that if the queen was reading this, then that meant he had at least gotten as far as delivering it, and for that he was glad.

In contrast, the letter from the Chief General was short, almost curt, and mostly about how they would be coming to Poseidonia to personally sort this out. The siren responsible had been expelled from the Order and would never be welcome among her people again. She was going to be delivered to the mermaids to punish as they see fit.

“My queen?” Princess Lucille asked.

“The rumors are true. A siren slaughtered a mermaid village near their capital. Rif’viya, it was called,” she said dully. “I guess we don’t need to send someone to investigate it now.”

“What? But why would they do that?” Lucille asked

“They’re saying they _accidentally_ brought a ship down exactly on top of the village and killed 528 of our people.”

“You don’t believe that?” Michelle asked.

“I believe that this isn’t the first time we’ve dealt with siren aggression. I believe that our people have a long-standing animosity and a history of war with each other. I believe that Rif’viya was awfully close to their capital and they don’t like having mermaid settlements in the Bermuda Triangle at all; it’s their primary hunting ground, and they think they own it,” Yekaterina said.

“If this was intentional, why would they cover it up? Wouldn’t it make more sense for them to make absolutely sure we know what they did, to use this as a warning and order us to evacuate the Triangle?” Michelle asked.

Yekaterina shook her head. “Not if they’re intending to quietly expel us on their own. They may not have intended for anybody to survive the attack and live to tell about it.”

“A guerilla war. No one would ever know,” Michelle said. “Maybe this wasn’t the first attack, just the first one we heard about.”

“That doesn’t seem like the sirens’ style,” Lucille said doubtfully. “I’ve never heard of a siren shying away from direct confrontation. That’s sort of their thing, isn’t it? They’re all about showing power and strength? They’re a military more than anything else. I think if they wanted to start a war, there would be no doubt about it.”

Yekaterina paused, chewing on her lip. “If the Siren Order is trying to monopolize the Bermuda Triangle, then they’re in violation of the Treaty of Shiloh. The sea is free for everyone; it has no borders. Just because the Chief General has forgotten that doesn’t mean anyone else has. The selkies would support us for sure, as well as the water sprites.”

“I’m not so sure about the water sprites,” Michelle said. “And the sirens would have their sea lions too.”

“I heard that one time a siren befriended a kraken. They would work together to kill humans. The kraken was big enough that it could look like an island, and the siren would seek out ships and lure them back to it. Then they would split their feast,” Lucille said. Michelle shuddered.

“We’re getting ahead of ourselves. Let’s leave tomorrow’s worries for tomorrow. And for all we know, the sirens might be telling the truth. They might make mistakes, but they aren’t stupid. For now, at least, let’s assume they’re smart enough to keep the peace,” Yekaterina said.

“Or,” Michelle said, “what if they designed this whole situation as an excuse to come here and assassinate us? You said yourself that this story sounds suspicious. Think about it. Their leaders are their strongest warriors, and they’re coming here right now. They could take the palace from the inside out, go singing through the streets, and fell our capital within a week.”

Her words hung heavy in the room. 

The queen rose from her throne. “I have a letter to compose.”

* * *

 

Someone yelling woke them in the middle of the night.

A young siren rushed towards them. A courier, going by the sash she was wearing.

“Ms. Chief!” she gasped, out of breath, tumbling to a halt just in front of Erzsébet. “A message from the Queen of Mermaids!”

She untied the knot at her shoulder and loosed the strip of fabric, handing it off to the Chief General. She gave an awkward salute, then turned to head back.

“No, stay a while. Rest. You must be exhausted. How far away was your village?” Erzsébet asked.

“About… nine and a half shibzlenks,” she said sheepishly.

“Nine and a half shibzlenks,” she repeated. “I thank you for your service. Now sit down before you collapse.”

The siren courier system was efficient in that it did not put the job on one person alone. Every village had one or more speed swimmers designated to the task and ready to drop what they were doing and leave at a moment’s notice. A courier only had to travel to the next village over before handing the message off to another with a brief explanation of where it was from and where it was going. That way the courier was never tired, never slow, and never needed to stop.

Still wasn’t as fast as the mermaid system.

The girl gratefully obliged. Erzsébet unrolled the fabric and began to read, her green eyes automatically glowing in the dark and illuminating the words.

_Dear Siren Chief General Erzsébet Héderváry,_

_Due to the troubling nature and delicate politics surrounding this incident, I think it would perhaps be best to meet in Atlantis rather than Poseidonia. I believe being in neutral waters will best help facilitate honest communication and peacekeeping endeavors on behalf of all parties. By the time this letter reaches you, you should be within a few days of approaching Atlantis, so that should work out nicely. I will be arriving shortly._

_I apologize for any inconvenience this change of plan causes you._

_Sincerely,_

_Her Majesty Yekaterina Braginskaya_

_Queen of Mermaids_

“Change of plans,” Erzsébet announced. “The queen wants us to meet her in Atlantis.”

“What? Why?” Natalya asked.

“It’s neutral ground.”

“This is not a good sign,” Lien said.

“No, it isn’t,” Erzsébet agreed. “Mermaids don’t do this. They love to show off their palaces, especially to us sirens.”

“If we meet in Atlantis, then they can end the conversation anytime they want. They can just get up and leave. In Poseidonia, they couldn’t do that, and they also couldn’t kick us out. It’d be bad manners,” Natalya said.

Erzsébet put her head in her hands, rubbing her temples. Sensing the tension, the courier excused herself, heading back to her village.

“May I?” Lien asked, hand an inch above the letter. At the Chief General’s nod, she picked it up and examined it.

“According to the date, this letter was sent from Poseidonia four days ago. The travel time fits. The queen got her estimate wrong, though. We passed Atlantis two days ago. We’re way off course,” she said.

“She thinks we’re so much slower than we actually are,” Natalya said. “Typical mermaid.”

“One can only hope,” Erzsébet muttered.

“What do you mean by that?” 

She sighed. “The current queen is new to power. She’s only been on the throne for thirteen years. I have no clue what sort of ruler she is. The last monarch was a merman, King Arthur, and we knew each other for centuries. We had worked together over the course of decades to broker peace between our peoples. Things weren’t always as good as they are now, you know, and now he’s gone, and I’m worried all our work is about to be undone.”

* * *

 

Atlantis was the cosmopolitan center of the ocean world. The city was an odd one, unlike any other, and the people wouldn’t have it any other way. It had no single majority species in control of it, and legend says it was built by humans.

They had wanted to make a floating city on the water, and in a way, they had. Atlantis did float. But not on the surface. It hovered a few shibzlenks below it. In years past, it had swayed with the current and gone wherever it pleased, making it the bane of mapmakers’ existence. But just a few decades back, the city council had gathered the funds and supplies necessary to firmly tether it in place. Atlantis was now permanently located in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, on the Tropic of Capricorn. It had become the crossroads hub of all ocean activity.

Atlantis sat perched on a large half-sphere of wood, the air within keeping it afloat using pretty much the same engineering as a standard ship. After the initial land-dwellers had died and sea creatures moved in, the city had grown past its confines and additions and extensions had been tacked on haphazardly ever since. Every city politician ever always ran on the docket of understructure renovations, but partisan bickering over just how it should be done ensured that the underside of Atlantis stayed an ugly mess.

Almost every building was made of cut stone, many trimmed with gold and multiple stories high. The platform had a layer of earth on it, allowing for parks and gardens. To keep it from washing away, the roads were fields of seagrass.

Seagrass paths among the glass and human architecture. Atlantis truly was strange, but strange in a beautiful sort of way.

The marketplace was full to bursting with people and sounds. Mermaid vendors hawked out prices for clothes and jewelry and trinkets, water sprites bickered over the sale of potions and charms, a siren riding on the back of a sea lion had attracted the attention of some selkie children, who cautiously asked if it was safe to pet.

The crowds parted to make way for the siren leaders. There was just enough of their own people in the crowd to recognize either them or their ranks and respond accordingly. Noticing the sirens’ reactions, everyone else made their own inferences. Word of their arrival would sweep through the city within the hour.

They checked in to the most expensive hotel there was and laid claim to the best rooms before the mermaids could get there and do that.

Natalya stretched out her arms above her head, ready to collapse onto one of the suite’s couches. “So—“

“Seize her, now!” Erzsébet barked.

All four guards rushed her immediately. Natalya ducked, allowing two of them to come within inches of colliding with each other, then rose up and slammed their heads together. Blood plumed out into the water, stinging as it hit her eyes.

A remaining guard hit her hard in the stomach as the other one attempted to pull her arm behind her back so as to snap a handcuff on. Natalya grabbed her wrist and yanked her around, getting the grip necessary to fling her bodily into the wall.

Focusing on the one guard gave the other the chance to clock her square in the nose. A painful _crack_ sounded, and even more blood filled the water, further obscuring the environment. Natalya circumvented the cloud and swooped down to grab the guard by her tail, pulling so fast that both her head and back smacked into the stone floor.

The guard was only down for a few seconds, but it gave Natalya the chance to unsheathe her dagger and make a break for the balcony.

Cold steel pressed against her throat. Vice-like arms held her in place from behind. “Don’t move,” Lien warned, her voice just inches from Natalya’s ear.

Erzsébet now began rummaging through their supply packs. She had been calm throughout all of this, not even joining the fray, as if fighting Natalya wasn’t even worth her time. She pulled out three strange-shaped pieces of metal and two keys, each on a chain.

“You should know I didn’t _want_ to deceive you,” she said. She put a helmet-like piece over Natalya’s head. She tried to jerk away, but that only made Lien clutch her tighter, pressing the blade into her skin a little.

“But I couldn’t risk you running off. The easiest way to transport a prisoner is to have them come willingly, you know.” A banana-like wedge was slipped over her mouth, spanning from her jawline to just under her nose and connected to the “helmet” on either side.

“I realize you didn’t mean to kill all those people. But the fact of the matter is, you did. Good intentions mean nothing when it comes to mass murder.” The third and final piece hooked under her chin, completely immobilizing her jaw. Erzsébet turned keys into all four connective locks. She kept one key to wear herself and handed the other off to Lien, who finished snapping on Natalya’s handcuffs.

“It’s nothing personal. Just politics.”

She did a final check to make sure the muzzle was firmly in place.


	3. Chapter 3

Two days later, both delegations met in a conference hall. Guards stood at attention at strategic places around the room. The sirens had brought two of them, the mermaids had brought twelve.

The mermaid nobility did their best to give a siren salute. The sirens gave stiff curtsies, Erzsébet a bit more gracefully than Lien.

“I would just like to start off by saying I am so incredibly sorry that this happened,” Erzsébet said. “The Siren Order wants nothing but peace with the Mermaid Court. We have protocol in place for preventing tragedies such as this. This would have never happened and will never happen again, but the siren responsible made a calculative error in the movement of the ship. This was in no way intentional on the part of anyone in the Order.”

“If it was just an accident, then why did your letter say you expelled and banished the siren responsible? Why punish someone who did no wrong?” Michelle asked suspiciously.

“We did that in the interest of showing how seriously we take this offense,” Lien said. “We couldn’t just let someone kill 500 people and get away with it. That would send the wrong message.”

“528. Not 500. You killed 528 mermaids,” Lucille said.

“’We’ had nothing to do with it,” Lien said. “This was one lone siren who acted on her own and has been punished extensively.”

“The reason her punishment may seem light in your eyes is because we’re leaving the majority of it up to you,” Erzsébet cut in. “She is currently in the Atlantis Prison. When this is all over, you may do whatever you want with her.”

“The Atlantis Prison isn’t exactly impenetrable,” Lucille said. “If she just ‘happened’ to escape…”

“I assure you, she is heavily shackled and muzzled so she can’t sing. As an added security, I left two of Vivimaris’ own guards there.”

“Oh, well how reassuring. A dangerous siren warrior is being guarded by some of her good friends from Vivimaris. What could possibly go wrong?” Michelle asked. “When she escapes, are you gonna try and call that an accident too?”

Erzsébet glared. With a huff, she said, “Lien, give your key to the queen.”

Lien removed the long cord from around her neck, passing it across the table. She shot the Chief General a questioning glance.

“The muzzle is secured through a system of four locks. One key undoes the two on the right; the other, the two on the left. We use two different keys instead of just one so that they can be kept separate. Makes it harder to steal. With the muzzle still on, there can be no escape,” Erzsébet said. “And now it can only be removed if we both agree to do so.”

Yekaterina picked up the necklace and inspected it. The key was half the size of a normal one and engraved with an L. It made sense. She looped it over her neck.

“I hope you won’t mind if I send some of _my_ guards over to the prison as well,” she said.

Erzsébet struggled to keep the rising bitterness out of her voice. “It was hard enough as is to convince the Atlantean police to allow two outsider guards in there. I don’t think they will take kindly to a whole horde coming in and getting in their way. As well as it being entirely unnecessary.”

The two rulers glowered at each other from across the table. The tension in the room could’ve been cut with a knife.

If the prisoner escaped, she would take that as her answer and end any peaceful discussion then and there.

Yekaterina sighed. “I don’t care how you punish her, or if you punish her, or anything. The punishment doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is the intention.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Maybe I should put it a bit more bluntly,” she said. “Are you forcing all mermaids out of the Bermuda Triangle?”

“What? Why would we—“ Lien started.

“What sort of people do you think we are?”

“That is massively illegal—“

“You think she was acting on orders to slaughter th—“

“Do you think we sit around all day, cackling evilly, thinki—“ 

“Alright. Alright!” Erzsébet yelled. “If intention matters so much, then why don’t we go down to the jail and you can talk to her yourselves?”

* * *

 

Natalya was in a large jail cell in the back corner of the block, away from everybody else. She had her hands free now, at least, as they weren’t worried about her picking the locks on the muzzle. Muzzles like that had been designed specifically with siren criminals in mind; they had a metal cover inside them that would only move when magnetically repelled by the key.

The rulers and their attendants paraded over, the two siren guards moving out of the way as they approached.

Natalya froze cold. Her eyes grew the size of moons. It was impossible. It was impossible, but there she was, her sister, Yekaterina, sporting a mermaid’s tail and a crown.

“Tell the Queen of Mermaids exactly what happened at Rif’viya,” Erzsébet said abruptly.

The Queen of Mermaids. Her sister was the Queen of Mermaids.

She had a tail colored in pale aquamarine. Her hair had been cut as short as a man’s, all the way up to her chin, letting it bounce free with soft curls. She had put on a bit of weight since Natalya had last seen her, but it seemed to suit her.

She had little creases in the corners of her eyes from smiling.

“Well?” Lien snapped.

…and she wasn’t reacting to Natalya’s presence at all. Why?

Well, it wouldn’t do for the Queen of Mermaids to have a personal connection to a siren war criminal, would it? Her impartiality could be called into question. It would give her subjects reason to doubt her judgement. She had to act like they were complete strangers.

“I gave you an order,” Erzsébet said icily.

Natalya snapped to her senses. She instinctively tried to speak, found she couldn’t move her jaw, and switched to sign language.

Lien translated her words aloud as she signed.

_I was going on a solo hunt. I was supposed to bring back food and gold, as well as any other useful treasures I found. Standard procedure is to manually bring the ship down when no rocks or reefs are available to crash against._

_I found a ship, and scouted the seafloor within five square shibzlenks of it. It was clear, there were no signs of life anywhere near there. Then I swam up to the ship, found out its name, looked over most of the crew. In hindsight, I should have done that before I scouted. Maybe that took longer than I thought, or maybe it was windier than I realized—_

“Why would you do that in the first place?” Michelle asked. “Inspect the ship itself? Why bother? You’re just gonna kill everyone on it anyway.”

Natalya scowled at her. _I did it because I’ve been looking for one particular human that I want to kill in a more personal way._

_As I was saying, I don’t know why, but the ship moved outside the scouting parameters by the time it started to sink. When I noticed the village in its path, I attempted to pull it backwards. That failed, so I swam to its underside and tried to shove it enough to change its course._

_When it became apparent that that was impossible, I ran down to the village and began yelling for them to evacuate. A good portion of them heard me, but almost no one listened. Most went to go find their friends and family first. I only saw a few get out in time._

She drew a steadying breath. _And then I immediately reported it to the Chief General._

Yekaterina glanced to Lucille, who nodded. “The translation’s accurate.”

With all their criminals being fitted with a muzzle rather than a prison jumpsuit, the Siren Order was largely considered bilingual. It was pretty much a prerequisite for their high-ranking officers to know sign language, and most of the rest of the ocean’s political elite learned it as well.

But Yekaterina was a mermaid, and she was new to power, and so far dealings with the sirens had been uneventful. There had been no reason for her to learn it.

“You can… un-banish her now. She’s careless, but she’s not a mass murderer. Not a real one, anyway,” she said.

Natalya frowned. _I don’t want special treatment. I’m not a little kid anymore, your highness, I can own up to my mistakes._

 “You aren’t getting special treatment. We discussed this before we even came down here,” Lien said dryly.

“Why does she think she would?” Michelle asked.

She felt like slamming her head into a wall.

“She was my second,” Erzsébet confessed.

Oh thank _God._

“What,” Yekaterina asked.

“One of your _generals_ killed a village and we’re supposed to believe the Siren Order had nothing to do with it?” Lucille asked.

“Yes, actually. If the Siren Order really had intended to kill a mermaid village, everyone would have known about it. There wouldn’t have been any questions like this, and there certainly wouldn’t have been a cover-up. This is not how we do things,” Erzsébet said.

All eyes turned to Yekaterina, awaiting her verdict.

“…I think that’s enough for today,” she said. “We could all use some time to think things over. We’ll reconvene in three days’ time. Does that work for you?" 

Erzsébet looked about to protest, but instead nodded brusquely.

* * *

 

“Short of a declaration of war, that could not have gone worse,” Lien said as soon as the door to the suite swung shut. “Expel mermaids from the Bermuda Triangle? They really do think we’re the scum of the Earth, don’t they?”

Erzsébet agreed noncommittally, unrolling a message the concierge had handed her at the front desk. Her nails dug tighter into it with every line she read.

_Chief General Héderváry,_

_Tensions have been high between the Rif’viya refugees and the citizens of Vivimaris. Two days ago, a mermaid and a siren got in a fight. It is unclear who started it, but things escalated, and the mermaid killed six sirens before we were able to restrain them. As she was being taken to the penitentiary, she was yelling about how Rif’viya must be avenged and “6 down, 522 to go!” Since then, it has become something of a slogan among the mermaids. Perhaps only a few of them said it just a few times, or maybe it is purely a rumor, but either way the city seems to be on the brink of boiling over. For their own safety, I have relocated the mermaids into the guards’ wing and asked that they not venture too far away from there._

_It seems like violence will break out again soon unless something is done. I request further instruction._

_Major General Smith_

_Head of the Guard, Vivimaris_

“What is it?” Lien asked. 

“Everything’s going to sh*t,” she said.

* * *

 

Two days later, when news of the fight was still fresh, another report reached both rulers in Atlantis. Yekaterina gasped reading the missive.

“My queen? Is something wrong?” Michelle asked.

“It’s Azurine—the village right next to Rif’viya. They launched an attack on Vivimaris.”

“What?! Why?” Michelle asked.

“They’re going to get themselves killed!” Lucille said.

“It took the sirens by surprise. They’ve captured the west side of one of the ring tunnels.”

“Why would they do this?” Michelle asked again.

“It says they’re trying to ‘free the captured prisoners of war.’ The Rif’viya refugees,” Yekaterina said.

“But they aren’t prisoners!” Michelle sputtered.

“They are being kept in the headquarters of the guard,” Lucille reasoned. “I mean, their village was levelled by a siren general and then they were taken from their people, placed in a police station in the sirens’ greatest military stronghold, and then ‘asked’ not to leave. They’re prisoners of war without a war.”

“Don’t say that,” Yekaterina scolded. “There’s no better way to start a war than by acting like it’s inevitable. If you give up on peace, then peace gives up on you.”

“Our people are literally laying siege to their capital as we speak,” Lucille said. “Do you really think peace is still an option?”


	4. Chapter 4

“I brought fish!” Michelle said, setting a plate of food down between Lucille and Lien and plopping down beside them herself. “Gosh, are they still in there?”

“Yep. They’ve officially been talking for seven hours straight now,” Lucille said.

The third day had rolled around and discussions resumed. Only this time, there was a lot more to talk about than just whether the Rif’viya incident had been an accident or not. The mermaids took issue with the way their refugees were being treated, the sirens insisted that the invasion of their capital far outweighed anything they might have done, and at one point there was a heated debate over what does and does not constitute a massacre.

Finally, the two heads of state had sent all their attendants out into the hallway, hoping they could make more headway by working one-on-one.

That had been two and a half hours ago.

“Are you not gonna have any?” Michelle gestured to the plate of seafood.

“No, thank you. I can’t eat fish,” Lien said.

“Oh, are you allergic?”

“No,” she said. “I’m a siren.”

“…Oh.”

The door opened and out stepped Yekaterina and Erzsébet. Lien instantly sprang upwards and gave a salute. The princesses were a bit slower. They curtsied even though they normally wouldn’t, just so they wouldn’t be shown up.

“We have an announcement to make,” Erzsébet said.

“The Mermaid Court and the Siren Order are going to formally merge into one government,” Yekaterina said excitedly. “We’re going to call it the Seafolk Federation.”

_“What?!”_

“Our peoples have been at odds for too long,” Erzsébet said. “Every few hundred years we repeat the same process: war, an empty treaty, an uneasy peace, and then war again. It’s time to break the cycle. It’s time to stray from the pattern.”

“And _this_ is the way to do that?!” Michelle shrieked.

“Peace and unity go hand in hand. A unified nation benefits everyone. This will effectively double the internal market size and do wonders for the economy. Mermaids will benefit from siren military protection, and sirens will benefit from mermaid production output. There can be no grievous misunderstandings such as the Rif’viya matter within a consolidated government. Siren interests will become mermaid interests and mermaid interests will become siren interests. We’ll work with each other, not against each other.”

“’A house divided against itself cannot stand’,” Lucille quoted.

“Yeah, what she said!” Michelle added. “How can you expect this to work when mermaids and sirens hate each other’s’ guts?”

Erzsébet grinned. “I’ll let Yekaterina explain that one.”

Yekaterina looked like she would rather die than explain that one. “In light of how we’re going to be working together closely from now on, and also what with the need to establish a unified government in the most peaceful way possible, we have decided… It would be best for both nations if… Um, we’re going to have a unity ceremony.”

“What do you mean by that?” Lucille asked, highly suspicious.

“You three are the next generation of rulers for your people. Normally, one mermaid will ascend to the throne and one siren will be promoted to the command. But that system needs to change, we need to work together now. The rulership needs to act as one. So, in order to facilitate that… We were wondering if maybe…”

“You’re getting married,” Erzsébet said. “Lien and Michelle. The siren general and the mermaid crown princess. When the two of you ascend to power, it will be together, not separately. A seamless transition.”

_“What?!”_

“Erzsébet…” Lien said tightly. “You can’t be serious with this.”

“You have a duty to the Order, General Chung. A duty to your _people._ I expect you to do what is best for them.”

She hesitated, then nodded obediently. “Of course, Chief General.”

Michelle was appalled. She knew if she said anything she would just get the same explanation from her queen that Lien had gotten. A duty to her people.

Lien. She hadn’t really spared the woman much thought beyond her being at the right hand of the sirens’ commander. She was a general, the second highest rank, making her the second fiercest warrior in the Order.

She had jet black hair cut carelessly and pulled back with a strip of red cloth. A large symbol in looping swirls was tattooed on the back of her neck. Her tail was deep green speckled with black, with two square-ish fins that fanned out jaggedly.

She looked like seaweed rot. A siren would probably take that as a compliment; say it was natural camouflage or served to strike fear into their enemies.

Michelle thought back on all their interactions. She had not seen Lien smile even once. She had come across as somewhat bullheaded and militant, and not much else. Like she was more soldier than she was a person.

Oh God, Michelle was going to have to _marry her._

Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. Maybe Lien just needed some time to warm up to people. Maybe it was just bad luck that they met in the situation and setting that they did. Maybe everything would work out really great. 

Maybe.

* * *

 

Erzsébet and Lien approached Natalya’s jail cell.

_You’re going to be released. You aren’t banished anymore,_ Erzsébet signed so as not to be overheard by any nosy Atlantean police. _You’re lucky Queen Yekaterina is so compassionate. You should be rotting in the Trench for criminal incompetence. A general has no business making the sort of mistake that you did. I wouldn’t have left this decision up to her if I had known she would just let you off the hook like this._

_Sorry for the inconvenience,_ Natalya snarked.

Erzsébet rolled her eyes. _Listen, politics have gotten tricky while you were in here. We’re at a very delicate place right now and can’t afford any more screw-ups or surprises. When you meet with the queen, you will be more polite than you have ever been. You will only speak when spoken to. You will not say anything more than absolutely necessary, and nothing at all about Rif’viya, the Order, anything even slightly political. I swear to God, Natalya, if you ruin this I will throw you in the Trench for a century. Is that understood?_

_Yes Ms. Chief._

_Good._ She unlocked the cell. Natalya followed her and Lien out. The two somewhat beat-up guards flanked her, just a half step behind, just in case she was stupid enough to try and make a break for it.

She absolutely was not going to be politely quiet when meeting with the queen. The first time she had the chance to speak to her sister in twenty years and she was supposed to not use it? Yeah right.

But what to say though? She still had to pretend like they were complete strangers. It would be nice to avoid getting sent to the Trench. Everything she said would have to be careful, measured.

But who knew when she would get to see Yekaterina again? She definitely did not want to be a siren living in Poseidonia, and Yekaterina would only rarely if ever go to Vivimaris. And even when she was there, there’s no way Erzsébet would let Natalya anywhere near her. It would be pointless to try.

Why should she even go back to Vivimaris? There was nothing left for her there. Almost everything there is run by the Order. Stripped of her rank, she no longer had any opportunities. She no longer had a home.

Maybe she wasn’t banished but she might as well be.

The monarchy was waiting outside the jail for their arrival. Yekaterina pulled the cord over her head, inserting the key into the left-side locks of the muzzle while Erzsébet did the same on the right. The muzzle was quickly disassembled and pulled off.

Yekaterina gasped. “Natalya?!”

“Yes?”

She was instantly smothered into a bear hug, Yekaterina squealing and gushing words so fast they were incomprehensible.

“I thought you were dead!”

“I was.”

“Why didn’t you say anything the first time I saw you?”

“I thought you recognized me?”

“How could I? Your whole face was covered and you grew a tail!”

Oh. _Duh._ She looked completely different than she had as a human. The muzzle had only shown her eyes, cheekbones, and nose; and of that, her nose was broken and her eyes had changed color, going from blue to purple.

“What’s going on?” Erzsébet asked, eyes flicking between the two of them.

“This is my sister, Natalya,” Yekaterina said.

“What,” Lien said darkly.

“Yeah!” she said. “Oh, we have so much to talk about! You should come back to the hotel with me.”

Natalya smiled. She felt lighter than she had in years. “Of course.”

Erzsébet plastered on a stiff, clenched-teeth smile. “How lovely for you both.”

“Isn’t it just?” Natalya simpered.

* * *

 

“—and after we captured the reefI walked up to my lieutenant general, grabbed her arm and flung her into the damn thing. Arrested her, and now she’s doing twenty to thirty in the Trench. That'll show her for defying my orders,” Natalya said. The mermaids blinked, mildly stunned.

“Sounds like you’ve had an… interesting tenure as a siren,” Lucille said.

“So Erzsébet tells me that you were a general? In only twenty years? How did you manage that?” Yekaterina asked.

By killing a lot of people. “Hard work and determination. How did you become queen?”

“The monarchy is chosen according to the stars. As soon as I became a mermaid, I was taken to the palace and made a princess. Then King Arthur and Prince Mathias died. So now I am queen.”

“I’m sorry.”

She waved a hand. “It’s fine.”

“So what is life like in Vivimaris?” Michelle asked lightly.

“Good. I’m going to miss it.”

“What do you mean?”

“I can’t exactly go back there. There’s no place for civilians in a fortress.”

“So where are you going to go?” Yekaterina asked.

Natalya shrugged. “There are plenty of lone siren nomads out there. I’ll become one of them. I’m a general; I can take care of myself.”

“Your ‘plan’ is to become a homeless wanderer?”

“I’ll be fine. I am an adult, you know.”

“You’re a teenager. It’s not the same,” Yekaterina said, concerned.

“Well, I really don’t have much of a choice, do I?” Natalya finally snapped.

Her sister leaned back in her chair, considering. An idea lit up across her face. “You could come live in Poseidonia with me! It’s a permanent diplomatic position; it’d be perfect. We were going to use Lien, but you’re both generals, aren’t you? The exact same rank.”

“You would give me a job after what I’ve done?”

“Tragic as it may be, what you did was an accident. You shouldn’t be punished eternally for it. And I would rather work closely with someone I know and trust than a complete stranger. The purpose of this arrangement is to establish easy and peaceful communication, isn’t it?”

“If the Siren Order will permit it, I would be honored.”

“I’m sure they will,” Michelle said numbly. Of course they would. The situation hadn’t been bad enough before, had it? Now she gets to marry a war criminal who just happens to be the queen’s little sister and could probably do no wrong in her eyes. Her life was going to hell in a handbasket.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This doesn’t have anything to do with the story but did you know that both Britain and France used to exile prisoners to Seychelles, way into the twentieth century? Only it didn’t work out so well because everyone they sent there ended up having a great time and really enjoying their stay there. Like, getting an all-expense paid trip to Seychelles was really more of a reward than a punishment, so British political prisoners in the 1950s really got to live it up.

The Siren Order had permitted it. Erzsébet had been wary at first, but then had come to see the sisters’ relationship as being advantageous and had warmed to the idea. Now she got to keep Lien on as a general in Vivimaris instead of having to replace both of them, and Natalya was going to a combat-free environment where hopefully she couldn’t screw anything else up. As long as they kept it quiet that she was the one who killed all of Rif’viya, this had a chance—a very slim chance—of actually going well.

Lien had been borderline ecstatic with the proposition. Natalya reassured herself that that was nothing to worry about. What self-respecting siren would want to give up their role as a general to go play house with mermaids? She was just in a good position and didn’t want to change things, that was all.

Both groups had rushed off to Poseidonia, the sirens slowing the mermaids down considerably. Natalya had hardly seen either Erzsébet or Lien since they arrived. Both were still almost constantly locked into negotiations about the finer details of everything, which Natalya was firmly told she would have no input in. They weren’t even informing her of anything.

The palace sat at the heart of the city, towering up far higher than any of the buildings around it. It was covered in twisting spires and open balconies. The few “doors” it did have were seagrass mats with intricate geometric patterns on them.

Inside, glowing gold rocks decked the walls wherever necessary, bathing the palace in soft light. Mermaids were only slightly less night-blind than humans, hence their tendency to build near shorelines, closer to the surface.

Natalya was given an extravagant guest room, which the mermaids told her was only a temporary arrangement. She had told them that she was perfectly fine with it as a permanent situation, but that had only earned her some funny looks.

Note to self: do not turn down mermaid hospitality. She must have offended the servants with that comment. Hopefully it wouldn’t become palace gossip or anything. The last thing she needed was to alienate the public on her very first day.

Right off the bat, her days were jam-packed with activity. There was to be a peace ceremony thirteen days after their arrival. It had to be thirteen days, apparently, according to a tradition that was based on an incomprehensible piece of mermaid lore.

The ceremony would follow mermaid ritual, so she was pretty much uninvolved in its planning. Her job was to A: stay out of everybody’s way, and B: incorporate any siren traditions she felt were necessary to represent her culture.

But mostly the first part, apparently.

Natalya knocked on the wall beside Michelle’s doorway.

“Come in!” she called.

Natalya pushed past the heavy seagrass curtain. “Do you know where any plain headbands are? All I’ve been able to find is tiaras.”

Michelle turned away from her vanity and sighed when she saw her. Really? She couldn’t have bothered Lucille or a maid with this? Didn’t she know it was bad luck to see the bride on the wedding day?

But maybe the bad luck would cancel out since there were two brides.

Or maybe it was double bad luck. That sounded more like how things had been going so far.

“I don’t know, maybe check in that armoire over there. Or ask someone else,” she sniped, turning back to the mirror and continuing threading pearls into her hair.

“You know, today is a peace ceremony. The formal uniting of our peoples. You could at least be civil about it,” Natalya replied just as acidly.

“Civil?” she laughed. “You kill hundreds, get away with it, come here and uproot my life, and _I’m_ supposed to be _civil?!”_

Natalya folded her arms. “Yeah.”

Anger bubbled over in her at such an indifferent reply. “Screw you! Get out of my room!”

She chucked a makeup bottle at the offending siren, who easily dodged it and looked more offended and shocked than genuinely scared. She flipped a middle finger in the air and stalked out.

Michelle felt like crying.

Was this her life now? Arguments and coldness for however many centuries they both lived? Married to a butcher who didn’t care one way or the other about her feelings? Who didn’t care one way or the other about _anyone_ , from the looks of it.

She didn’t ask to be crown princess. She didn’t ask the stars to choose her. She could have done perfectly fine for herself as just another ordinary mermaid out in the Indian Ocean.

She didn’t ask to be ripped away from her island, shoved onto a throne, and told she had new duties. She had lived a carefree life on Seychelles, until the end. She hadn’t had a family or all that many friends, but she didn’t need that many people to live a good life.

She ran around untethered, no responsibilities and no worries. Life was good. The sunshine was constant, the island was beautiful, the coconuts were doing well. Small town life was peaceful. The people were friendly, and frankly, they all loved her. She had a steady job as a farmhand on a coconut orchard. It didn’t pay the greatest, but she got by, and she was happy.

Now look at her.

Everything was the opposite. She could barely recognize herself in the mirror. She was used to seeing a gangly teenage farmgirl, the sun on her skin, and tired—but a good tired. A hard day’s work tired.

She supposed she was technically an adult woman now. Getting ready for her wedding, uniting feuding peoples, preparing to lead a nation as if she had a clue what she was doing.

Rude. Disgusting. Uncalled for. She did not ask. 

She picked up another pearl and laced it into her hair.

* * *

 

The ceremony was taking place in Poseidonia’s largest cathedral, presumably so that as many people as possible could attend.

“The pope is leading the ceremony?” Natalya asked, spying her from across the room where a few key people were getting ready.

“Of course. We couldn’t do this without her,” Yekaterina said. “She was the one who coroneted me, you know.”

“Ah, I see.” The Mermaid Court was still so much like any other human monarchy, wasn’t it? Any change in rulership needed the blessing of the church. Apparently even just the appointment of diplomatic envoys.

The musicians began to play and the people all took their seats. Lien and Lucille walked down to the altar side by side, then split ways and stood a good distance from each other. Erzsébet and Yekaterina followed suit, taking the next closest places to the altar.

Michelle stood stiffly as far away from Natalya as she could get. Did she not understand that the whole purpose of this was unity? Didn’t she realize what sort of message she was sending?

Natalya grabbed her hand and linked their arms at the last second, forcing them to go down the aisle almost connected at the hip.

Michelle seethed. Natalya’s nails were digging into her skin, her knuckles death-grip white. What, did she think she was going to try to squirm away in front of everyone? Her “bride” thought she was that immature? She could do her own damn job without having to be led around by a siren, thank you very much. And from the sounds of it, she had been seafolk way longer than Natalya had anyway.

Thankfully, the siren menace deigned to unclaw herself from Michelle’s arm at the altar.

She was not going to glare daggers at her. No. Because she was the bigger person, and not all mermaids were vapid narcissists who just did whatever they wanted without thinking through the consequences, and so ha. _She_ was the more experienced politician here, and she wasn’t going to make a scene on her wedding day.

God, who did that siren think she was?

The pope smiled at them both. “Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to join two souls in holy matrimony, to…”

Natalya went cold with horror.

This was a wedding.

_This was a wedding!_

She couldn’t move. There was nothing she could do. If she panicked and left the princess at the altar, it would tear their whole plan for peace to shreds.

_She was getting married._

Oh my god, she was going to kill Kat for this. She did not seriously just marry her own sister off as a political pawn. Natalya did not agree to this, she had not had all the information, this was crossing the line.

“Do you, Michelle Moncherry, take this Natalya Braginskaya to be your lawfully wedded wife?”

“I do.”

Michelle. Her name was Michelle. Good information to know.

“Do you, Natalya Braginskaya, take this Michelle Moncherry to be your lawfully wedded wife?”

Oh god.

“I do.”

“I now pronounce you married. You may kiss the bride,” the pope said.

Her ears were ringing like a klaxon, drowning everything else out. This was unreal. This couldn’t be happening.

Michelle calmly leaned in and kissed her lips, just for a second.

The crowd stood up and applauded. Michelle turned and smiled at them, taking Natalya’s hand in her own and leading her back down the aisle, numbstruck.


End file.
